Liberia: Holding Polluters Accountable

Erin Farris with a water quality sample from a local well.

The Farmington River flows 75 miles from the Bong Range to Liberia’s Atlantic Coast, passing the city of Harbel and the world’s largest latex rubber processing plant, operated by Bridgestone/Firestone. Local residents complain that the factory discharges untreated effluent, causing health and environmental problems.

ELAW is helping partners at Green Advocates hold the corporation accountable. Law student and ELAW volunteer Erin Farris spent the summer in Liberia working with Green Advocates. She helped monitor water quality near the rubber plant using test kits provided by ELAW. In the river near the plant, Erin found levels of ammonia that are toxic to fish that villagers rely on for food. Ammonia is used as an anti-coagulant in the conversion of raw latex into rubber sheets.

China Program Report

Fang Lei with Antoinette Moore

More and more lawyers in China are working to protect the environment through law. ELAW is hosting Chinese lawyers for ELAW Fellowships, to help build their capacity and connect them with their colleagues around the world. Many ELAW fellows from China work with Wang Canfa, Director of the Beijing-based Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV). Earlier this year, Wang helped push through a new water pollution law that toughens punishment of company officials through hefty fines. Our latest fellows from China, Fang Lei and Liang Xi, both work with Wang Canfa at CLAPV.

Fang Lei

Fang Lei enjoyed a two-week Fellowship at ELAW in September and learned how grassroots attorneys around the world share information to protect communities and the environment. “Environmental law is new in China and there is so much I can do,” she said.

Fang Lei is studying law at China University of Political Science and Law, in Beijing. She answers the Hot Line at the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims where she was named 2007 Volunteer of the Year.

While at ELAW, Fang Lei spent time with Antoinette Moore, a human rights attorney from Belize who helped Mayan Villagers win a landmark case granting them rights to their traditional lands. Fang Lei also worked with ELAW staff and learned about alternative dispute resolution, how energy policy can protect the climate, and how environmental testing of soil and other scientific tools might advance her work protecting a community in Heilongjiang Province from a polluting chemical factory.

Fang Lei attended a court hearing, learned about U.S. environmental cases at the Western Environmental Law Center, and visited local waste management and recycling facilities.

She said: “I received tons of legal and scientific information. Most importantly, I felt personal encouragement for my work. Web sites have information, but no personal support. I feel truly inspired.”

Liang Xi

Liang Xi has just arrived for a ten-week ELAW Fellowship. He is studying law at China University of Political Science and Law and volunteering at the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims. Liang Xi will work with ELAW staff and study English at the University of Oregon’s American English Institute. Many thanks to the American English Institute for its generous support!

Kenya Gathering Builds Global Collaboration

During the first week of August, 41 grassroots advocates from 18 countries gathered at the 2008 ELAW Annual Meeting in Mombasa, Kenya. They drew inspiration and strength from each other, and tapped each other’s expertise on dozens of issues facing disadvantaged communities all over the world.

During that week, ELAW partners in 21 countries, who could not attend the meeting, used ELAW’s network to collaborate electronically with meeting participants.

Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, U.S., Uganda, Ukraine, Zimbabwe

	ELAW partners from around the world meet in Mombasa, Kenya, for the 2008 ELAW Annual Meeting
	ELAW partners collaborated on critical issues, including: Human rights and the environment Halting power plant emissions World Bank policies Protected area management Global warming GMOs and biosafety Access to justice, access to information, public participation

Indigenous Rights Takes Center Stage at Annual Gathering

Kenyan human rights attorney Nixon Sifuna expressed the sentiments of many who participated in the 2008 ELAW Annual Meeting. In an e-mail message he sent to ELAW partners around the world, Nixon wrote: “This was my first annual conference and it was far more exciting than any meeting I have ever attended, wheresoever, howsoever, whatsoever, name it!”

Nixon has worked to protect the Ogiek and their tribal lands in Kenya’s Mau Forest from government plans to sell those lands to private interests. Kiplangat “Peter” Cheruiyot, a member of the Ogiek tribe, was an enthusiastic meeting participant. Peter was joined by several other indigenous peoples who presented their community struggles to the group:

Amos Isimbwa from the Busongora tribe in Uganda, Gordon Lupembe from the Bena tribe in Tanzania, Raju Mimi from the Idu Mishmi tribe in India, Eugin Nokrek from a tribal community living in the Modhupur Sal Forest in Bangladesh, and Anne Kajir, a 2007 Goldman Prize winner from Papua New Guinea.

Raju Mimu and the Idu Mishmi tribe in northeast India are trying to protect their ancestral lands from government plans to construct mega dams in Dibang Valley. At the close of the meeting, Raju said: “I am open to many, many new ideas. We thought protest was the only option, but we realize there are more options.”

Many thanks to ELAW partners at the Institute for Law and Environmental Governance (ILEG) and the Resources Conflict Institute (RECONCILE) who hosted this year’s meeting. Thanks also to The Christensen Fund and the Ford Foundation for providing valuable support.

“I am open to many, many new ideas. We thought protest was the only option, but we realize there are more options.” Raju Mimi Idu Mishmi tribe, India

Protecting the Human Rights of Public Interest Lawyers

ELAW Partners in Guatemala and Swaziland Threatened

Grassroots advocates challenging injustice face serious risks. In September, ELAW partner Yuri Giovanni Melini was shot four times as he got out of his car in Guatemala City. It is widely believed that Yuri was targeted for his environmental advocacy.

Yuri Giovanni Melini

Yuri is the Director General of the Center for Environmental, Social and Environmental Action (CALAS). He is an outspoken advocate for the environment in Guatemala. In April, ELAW Director Bern Johnson and Associate Director Lori Maddox traveled to Guatemala to work with CALAS and the Ministry of Natural Resources on a national marine coastal zone policy. CALAS and ELAW also hosted a judicial training workshop and a seminar on citizen enforcement mechanisms in the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

The week before Yuri was shot, he wrote a column in a national newspaper calling attention to threats to environmental advocates in Guatemala, including acts of murder, calling on his government to bring an end to this growing trend.
CALAS has successfully mounted legal challenges against destructive mining practices and water contamination, and Yuri is often quoted in the media on these issues. The Guatemalan and international press have reported the attack as “a warning,” to environmental advocates.

As of this printing, Yuri remains in intensive care following three surgeries. His condition is stable. (See update.)

	Thuli Makama

Yuri is not alone in facing threats. In Swaziland, ELAW partner Thuli Makama, her family, and the staff of her organization are facing threats for their work to protect the rights of local communities.

Thuli is the Director of Yonge Nawe (SiSwati for “you too must conserve the environment”). Thuli and Yonge Nawe are representing local people allegedly terrorized by game rangers and employees of Big Game Parks (BGP), a private company that owns and manages two large game reserves in Swaziland. Unfortunately, provisions of Swaziland’s Game Act protect perpetrators of violence in the name of protecting game parks.

Yonge Nawe defended members of the Nhlantambita community who were forcibly evicted from their homes by BGP. Musa Gamedze, a member of this community, was shot and killed in front of his family on August 8, 2008. The Swazi Weekend Observer reports that police officers and Jubela Reilly, a game ranger and the son of BGP Trustee Ted Reilly, were involved in the killing. Yonge Nawe is calling for an independent investigation into this killing.

Since 2004, Yonge Nawe staff have been threatened and harassed. Yonge Nawe's office has been broken into and computers stolen. Recently, staff members have been robbed and terrorized. In response to public calls for an investigation into Musa's killing, BGP has sponsored full-page ads in local newspapers attacking Yonge Nawe, Thuli, and her family.

Ethiopian Advocate Released

Netsanet Demissie

Netsanet Demissie was released from an Ethiopian prison in March, after nearly two and a half years in jail.Netsanet is the founder of the Organisation for Social Justice in Ethiopia. OSJE was chosen by civil society organizations in Ethiopia to be the secretariat of a 35-member network to monitor Ethiopia's May 2005 elections. Following that contentious election, thousands were arrested. Most were released, but others, including Netsanet, were charged with crimes and faced the death penalty.

ELAW Staff Attorney Jennifer Gleason traveled to Ethiopia in 2004 to work with Netsanet on environmental and human rights issues. "Netsanet made an incredible sacrifice to defend the rule of law. We applaud his courage and are thankful that this travesty of justice has come to an end. We will now pick up where we left off!" says Jennifer.

Many thanks to ELAW's friends and partners around the world who responded to calls from ELAW and sent letters to Ethiopian authorities demanding Netsanet’s release.

“You guys are amongst the first persons I would have loved to meet at the gate of the prison … I extend my deepest gratitude.”
Netsanet Demissie

Belize: Protecting the Human Rights of Mayan Villagers

	Antoinette Moore and her son Kwame
	“We feel very very fortunate in Belize to have a relationship with ELAW, and hope that relationship continues for a long time, so we can continue the work to protect the environment and the rights of the people in Belize.” — Antoinette Moore

ELAW partner Antoinette Moore has a lifelong commitment to defending the human rights of people living in disadvantaged communities. She has lived and worked in Belize for 14 years. Through collaboration with the Belize Environmental Law and Policy Organization and other grassroots organizations in Belize, she has championed the rights of Mayan peoples seeking to protect their communal lands from the government and corporations seeking timber, oil, and other natural resources.

Antoinette traveled to the U.S. in September for a Prosser-Jang Fellowship, to work one-on-one with ELAW staff and advance her work. Her son Kwame joined her.

During her Fellowship, Antoinette was interviewed on KLCC-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in Eugene, Oregon. Below are excerpts from her interview:

The indigenous people in Belize are primarily Mayan. They reside in 38 villages in the south, bordering Guatemala. For the most part they remain subsistence farmers. They fish and hunt, and gather materials in the rainforest for building their houses.

I have been working with ELAW for ten years through the Belize Environmental Law and Policy Organization. We were fighting the government around the concessions that were given for oil prospecting on indigenous lands. The company was permitted to enter the land without submitting an Environmental Impact Assessment. ELAW gave the greatest of support and we were victorious in that case.

Antoinette Moore
KLCC-FM “Northwest Passage”
September 5, 2008

VICTORY A Clean Air Act for Israel!

Tamar Gannot

Back in 1999, when Israel began to consider enacting legislation to protect air quality, attorneys at the Israel Union for Environmental Defense called on ELAW for help. ELAW attorneys and scientists provided information about the U.S. Clean Air Act and lessons learned from efforts to protect air quality in the U.S.

Later, through the ELAW network, advocates from Sri Lanka and the Czech Republic sent examples of their country’s Clean Air legislation, and partners in Europe provided information about the Integrated Pollution Prevention & Control Directive, which the European Union adopted in 1996.

Once the Israeli law was in draft format, ELAW partners in India, the U.S. and Canada provided guidance on specific regulations regarding their country’s permit processes.

ELAW partner Tamar Gannot at the Israel Union for Environmental Defense sent good news in late July: